Best Time To Write

I have an optimum writing time. The time of day when I am relaxed, yet alert. When the ideas coalesce in my head and the words come easily. When everything just flows.

The problem is, my optimum writing time moves. For a while, it was three o’clock in the afternoon, which worked out ok.

Then it became six o’clock in the morning, which wasn’t too bad if I wasn’t working – I could always go back to bed afterward – but if I did have a job, I had to keep one eye on the clock, and that’s never ideal when you’re trying to lose yourself.

Currently it fits nicely between The Archers and Eastenders. (If you’re not in the UK, The Archers is a radio soap opera and Eastenders a TV one). I’m currently obsessed by both and there’s a fair chunk of time between them when I can write.

But what happens if it moves again? It it becomes 2am? And why does it move in the first place? Colin Dexter used to write for two hours in the afternoon, listen to The Archers and then go to the pub. Why can’t my creative subconscious settle down into a routine like that?